A communication device may let a user exchange information with another user through a communication network. For example, a telephone lets a user speak to another user (and lets him or her hear what the other user is saying) via a telephone network. A computer adapted to provide telephone communication can similarly let a user talk to another user.
Occasionally, however, a user may want to prevent information from being transmitted to another communication device. Consider a first user who uses a telephone to place a telephone call to a second user. While the two users are talking to each other, the first user might want to speak with a friend or a co-worker without having the second user hear what he or she is saying. As another example, consider a user who participates in a telephone conference call. In this case, the user may want to prevent background or line noise from being transmitted to other participants (e.g., if he or she is using a speakerphone). This can be especially important when the conference call includes a large number of participants, because the combination of noise from many different telephones can be distracting.
It is known that a communication device can include a “mute feature” that lets a user prevent information from being transmitted to other communication devices. For example, a telephone may have a mute button that a user can press to activate a mute feature. When activated during a telephone call, the mute feature will prevent other participants in the telephone call from hearing what the user is saying—while still letting the user hear what the other participants are saying. Such a mute feature may be incorporated, for example, in the telephone itself or in a telephone conference call bridge (e.g., a participant may dial “*6” during a conference call to activate the mute feature for his or her telephone).
Of course, such a communication device also lets the user de-activate the mute feature. That is, the user can de-activate the mute feature when he or she wants to again allow information to be transmitted to other communication devices (e.g., the user may re-press a mute button when he or she wants to resume speaking to other users). It is not uncommon, however, for a user to forget to de-activate the mute feature when he or she attempts to communicate with other users. For example, a user may inadvertently begin to speak to other participants while the mute feature on his or her telephone is still active. In this case, the other participants will not hear what he or she is saying (nor will the user realize this fact). The resulting confusing can be annoying to all participants and may be especially embarrassing to the user.
To reduce this problem, some communication devices provide a mute status indication. For example, a telephone may have a small light that remains on while the mute feature is active. Unfortunately, even with this type of static indication many users still forget to de-activate the mute feature when they begin to speak. Moreover, it may not be practical to provide a mute status indication when a mute feature is incorporated in a device other than a user's telephone or computer. By way of example, when the mute feature is incorporated in a telephone conference call bridge, a participant's telephone might not be able to provide any indication whatsoever (e.g., the telephone might not have a light that can be controlled by the conference call bridge). Note that in this case, even a static reminder might be impractical (e.g., a periodic tone reminding a user that his or her mute feature is currently active might be too annoying for the user).